


Breathe Me

by Kittenmaya



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Character Death, M/M, major angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1266067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenmaya/pseuds/Kittenmaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Left alone after Derek's death, Stiles finds himself hating the house they had called home and the life they had inhabited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Future AU in which Derek and Stiles have been together for 3 years before Derek is killed by a rouge Omega. Just a short piece because it's 1-30 am and I needed some angst in my life. It's rubbish, sorry!

It was always going to end this way. There was always going to be a final smack down and Stiles was always going to lose him. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried to change that, he was always going to end up standing over the cooling body of his world. Not that Derek had always meant so much to him, only a few years ago Stiles would have happily been the one to have caused his death. Now though, now Stiles was staring at the body of the man he loved and, honestly, wondering what it would take to join him. Scott drags him off of the body after an hour or so and Stiles can’t scream any more because he’s ripped his throat open already. The noises coming out him aren't even human any more, just heaving screeching, sobs that come from deep inside and make his whole body twist and convulse. Truthfully it scares Scott and he’s glad when he can get home and Melissa gives Stiles a sedative that puts him down in minutes. Only once he is sure that Stiles is out can he cry, he can sob into his mother’s arms like he hasn't in years and morn the loss of a friend and the destruction of another. Stiles stays with them for two days, absent in a way Scott hasn't seen in him since the days after his mother’s death all those years ago.

The worst of it doesn't even hit Stiles until he goes back to the house that they had called home for the last year and a half. Suddenly the yawning whole inside of him is filled with the memories they made together, the first time Derek admitted that Stiles wasn't ‘the most annoying person in the world’, the first time they kissed, rough and messy and desperate as Derek saved him once again, from some bad guy, the first time they argued as a couple, over flowers of all the stupid things, the first steaming row that lead to the first time they made love. Telling Scott, telling his dad, telling Cora, who had laughed until she cried before announcing it had taken them too long. Cora, he would have to see her at some point. See her and tell her why he had failed in his duty to protect her brother. Why he had let Derek down when it had truly mattered. Why he – why he hadn't been there to stop them ripping Derek’s strong body to shreds. The house still smelt of burned food from the dinner he had over cooked a few days ago. Stiles stood on the door step, front door open and all of this washing over him. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he had to rush to the kitchen sink to throw up the toast Melissa had forced upon him before she’d let him leave her care. Rinsing the sink he looked around the kitchen they had shared. One of Derek’s few jumpers hung on the back of a chair, a half full mug sat on the kitchen table, a paper was shoved to one side. It looked like a still life photo, a life still occupied and just waiting for the inhabitant to return. The thought brought on another wave of nausea and Stiles turned back to the sink. 

Later, when he could look around without wanting to throw up, he made his way slowly around the house, brushing his fingers over their pictures, only slightly ruined by Derek’s stupid glowing eye thing, and absently picking up clothes that were laying around. He walked pasted the bedroom, their bedroom, a dozen times before he could bring himself to even open the door. The smell of them washed over him as he stood there, one foot inside their room one out, and he had to turn and run to the bathroom to dry wretch into the loo. After he had stopped shaking he returned to the bed room. The sheets still smelled like Derek and he curled into them, tears running silently into Derek’s pillow.

He put the house on sale the next day, packing a duffle and with drawing all his savings. After stopping by his dad’s and the McCall’s he hit the road, putting as many miles between him and their life as he could.


	2. The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the road it's no easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second part of what was going to be a one shot. I might add bits from time to time.

He dreamt deeply. Fully. Totally. When he dreamt, he made it on time. When he dreamt, Derek’s body wasn’t cold when he got there. It was still warm, still moving, still living, still Derek. When he dreamt, Stiles always made it there in time to save Derek, no matter how bad it was. Sometimes Scott was with him, sometimes Allison, sometimes just him. But every night, he made it in time.

When he woke reality was there to remind him of how he should have come home earlier, he shouldn’t have gone into work that day, he should have been there. He should have been there Goddamn it! The car wasn’t exactly comfortable and he didn’t always stop in proper places, preferring to be able to start the car and go as soon as he woke. He had covered about 1,500 miles in the last week. Starting the car was a new reason to run every day, the rumble of the engine a reminder of the work they had put into keeping his Jeep running, the summers days spent watching a topless Derek repair some stupid, imagined problem Stiles had come up with, his soft spot of Derek working on his car was no secret. He had let his phone die, shoved into the glove compartment with what money he had with-drawn, his passport, driving paperwork and a ring box. The ring box. 2 years, 3 months and 13 days ago, the ring box Derek had slid to the floor with, in their nearest Pizza place, completely unromantic and totally not what Stiles had expected. He had never imagined Derek for any sort of official recognition of their silent agreement that this was it for them. And yet, he knelt there words so clear and confident Stiles could hear them even now.

‘Stilinski, I don’t expect to have to remind you that you're mine. But this seems a good way to get it into your Adderall high brain that I’m not going anywhere. Marry me?’ Stiles had cried even as he was laughing at the roughness of Derek’s words. It brought different tears to his eyes now. His foot pushed down on the accelerator harder than it should as he tried to drive, head-first, into his dreams.


End file.
